ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — Kyle Lofton seemed poised to be the center of this story.

After going down with an apparent ankle injury late in the second half, with the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball season having very briefly flashed before its eyes, the sophomore point guard returned in the final two minutes, seemingly giving Bona the final push it needed.

Lofton sank a pull-up jumper to make it 68-65 with 1:17 left and got another bucket on a goaltending call to give the Bonnies a 70-67 lead with 39 ticks remaining. And even after Duquesne tied at 71 on a pair of free throws in the final seconds, there was Lofton, with the ball in his hands, driving to the basket, ready to win it in much the same way he did last February against La Salle.

Only this time, his game-winning attempt caromed off.

And instead of finishing a season sweep of the Dukes and further distancing themselves in the race for a double-bye, the Bonnies wound up suffering arguably their most bitter defeat of the season.

Michael Hughes, who finished with 18 points on 8-for-9 shooting, knocked down a jump hook to give the Dukes a 78-75 lead with 1:33 remaining in overtime. Duquesne, playing for its top-four lives, never trailed again. The result, in another highly entertaining game between the teams, was an 81-77 loss before a crowd of 4,548 on Wednesday night in the Reilly Center.

“Two teams going at it, just like the game in Pittsburgh,” a dispirited coach Mark Schmidt said afterward. “We had our opportunities: a couple missed shots, we had turnovers; we stepped out of bounds a couple times. We had a couple of mental mistakes …

“(But) we had our chances. They made one more play than we did.”

After a lethargic first half in which it was admittedly “out-toughed,” sloppy offensively and went into the break down seven (35-28), Bona (18-10, 10-5) looked the part of a top four team — like itself — after halftime.

Trailing 56-50 following a missed Lofton free throw with 8:31 left, the Bonnies responded with a 10-0 run to retake the lead and bring the audience to a fever pitch with each passing possession. When Osun Osunniyi made a jump hook to make it 66-61 with 3:06 left, they appeared destined for another key February victory

But they couldn’t finish the Dukes in regulation.

And they couldn’t answer Duquesne (81-77) in the final minute of overtime.

And on this night, the Bonnies were ultimately done in by those miscues: A missed free throw here, a pair of turnovers on their final possessions in OT, and a missed opportunity to further seal its double-bye.

“A lot of mistakes,” said sophomore center Osun Osunniyi, who scored a career-high 23 points on 10-for-15 shooting, with 13 rebounds. “I made a mental mistake not knowing a play; I messed up a play. Just the little things. They out-toughed us in the first half, we played harder in the second half.

“(But) when you play a good team like that, you can’t have mental lapses like that and making them make soft plays.”

After falling behind by as many as nine in the first half, Bona came alive offensively, scoring 43 points on 50 percent shooting, and played just enough defense after the break to bring a lead into the final minute of regulation.

After being badly beaten inside by Hughes in the first half, and surrendering 42 points in the paint and 17 offensive rebounds, it weathered that production from the Dukes’ frontline to give itself a chance.

But in the end, as Schmidt noted, even in the face of a raucous RC audience, Duquesne made the bigger plays and bigger shots down the stretch.

Since Carry (18 points) made the free throws to force overtime and the two freebies that gave the Dukes an 81-77 lead in the final seconds of overtime. Lamar Norman Jr. (14 points) knocked down a couple of key 3-pointers. Baylee Steele made his only 3 to open the overtime session.

As a result, the Bonnies fell a game behind Richmond (a winner on Wednesday) for third in the Atlantic 10 standings, though they remain a game ahead of the Dukes and Davidson for the No. 4 spot with three contests remaining.

“We tried to come out with energy (in the second half) — get going, get some stops — and we kind of came out and did that,” Osunniyi said. “But as the game went on, we kind of let up and the energy went back down again like it was in the first half. That’s kind of what happened.”

Dominick Welch collected another double-double, finishing with 10 points and 14 rebounds, though he struggled from the field, going just 3-for-14. Lofton totaled 14 points and seven assists while Jaren English notched 15 points and five assists.

What was Bona looking for on its final possession in regulation, when Lofton’s pull-up and a couple of tip-ins bounced out as time expired?

“Drive the ball, pull up, put the ball in your best guy’s hands and make a play,” said Schmidt, whose team lost at home to the Dukes for the first time since 2009. “Same as our last possession in overtime.”

And instead of maintaining its positioning with the Spiders, Bona was forced to ponder a win that slipped through its fingers, and must now regroup heading into La Salle.

“We have competitive guys in the locker room,” Schmidt said. “They’re upset. We lost. And now you have to deal with that loss. We have 24 hours and you come back tomorrow and get after it and get ready for La Salle.

“That’s the mentality. That’s the mentality it’s always been, win or lose.”